10 steps to plan successful business automation initiatives

In a world marked with constant economic uncertainty and changes, many people scare away from automation simply by fear of the unknown, initial capital investment, and the worry of changing their organization’s culture.
Many also believe this could lead the way to turning every position into a robot or computer. The reality is that automation is here to make employees’ lives better and alleviate their workflow so they can utilize this time towards finding new ways to innovate, ultimately leading to business growth.
This means less time entering and looking for information, writing reports, and much more.
The mundane activities that every employee dread because it usually keeps them away from doing what really matters in their role.

The benefit of automation lies in the execution of a task at a much higher speed. In addition to its velocity, its performance does not fluctuate based on a human body’s temperament or glucose levels, that could lead any employee to experience oversight.
Miscalculations or errors, when passed from one person to another, or worst from one department to another, can become very challenging to control in a matrixed environment. They can even become deadly in manual laboured environments.
In large organizations with worldwide operations, it becomes difficult for executives to manage their business unit at a micro level; instead, many functional managers lead different groups. Each team working to the best of their ability, given their department’s constraints.
However, if miscommunication happens or mistakes are made, then carried over to other departments, the result seen often leads to: continue business as usual.
From a bigger picture, the reality is: employees work longer hours to make things work. They constantly put out fires derived from an accumulation of mistakes, often losing sight of the real problem.

What automation brings is peace of mind. Information is entered as accurately as possible and completed at a much faster rate. Data can communicate in real time and be updated in no time.
If needed, this information can automatically be added to a business intelligence platform, helping leaders make even better business decisions.
The accuracy and transparency of information ultimately serves everyone involved in the process.

A significant approach in preparing the workforce to this inevitable shift, particularly for the roles that will be most affected by automation, is to support their development by teaching complimentary skills that will go hand in hand with these new tools.
A great effort in communication and support will be important in that transition to achieve higher results.

Automation can be utilized at many different touch points of a business:
Buying, demand planning & supply chain management.
Inventory, manufacturing, logistics, sales recommendations, CRM, Marketing, Payment processing, management, scheduling, workflow tools and much more.

If automation is being considered in an organization, its implementation needs to be well thought out.

Here are 10 steps to plan and adopt successful automation initiatives:

1. Conduct root-cause analysis underlying your top business issues (internal or external)
2. Start with the most repetitive tasks. Look for functions that are the most susceptible to errors with the highest business impact.
3. Research the best solution based on your business objectives, capacity and budget (SaaS, sensors, IoT, Ai, ML, etc)
4. If you have a strong tech team, consider doing a Build vs. Buy analysis
5. Strengthen the business process with accurate order and information. This step improves the quality of your data in order to avoid deploying from a broken workflow.
6. Set up a program for the roles most impacted by automation with employee training and development.
7. Launch company-wide or department-wide communication explaining the steps towards automation, its impact on daily activities and business growth.
8. Initiate Integration and Implementation
9. Conduct Quality Control, Tests & anticipate potential improvements
10. Sustain the process and reap the rewards!

It is essential to keep in mind that these steps are iterative and need to be examined regularly to truly benefit from their by-product.

The challenge is in proving that automation tools, machine learning and AI can coexist with human capital. That such a coalition can deliver excellence in products or services, in order to better serve customers and reach ultimate business competitiveness.
In parallel, it is equally important to learn how to balance automation tools and ML/AI objectives with the critical human touch needed when delivering exceptional customer service and staying in tune with employees’ well-being.

Based on market observations, tech companies are hiring at speeding pace in a large array of roles. In that sense, there is no reason why all business categories cannot benefit from the same type of performance and growth whether they have a more traditional business approach or were built on a digital-first mindset.

In the next few years, we will witness how companies will embrace these new technologies in order to adapt to their ever-evolving markets.
There will also be an interesting learning curve when it comes to balancing technology driven initiatives and human capital.

At the end, success will reside at that perfectly calculated intersection between human and machine, while never forgetting the purpose each embody for the development of a better society. Ethics, transparency, productivity, better products and services should be the end goal; enabling a transformation that will naturally lead to profitability.